The Dodo Archive

Watch A Brilliant Giant Rat Sniff Out Land Mines With 100% Accuracy

African pouch rats are heroic animals. Not only can they be trained to detect tuberculosis in humans, they can also detect land mines -- and, thankfully, are too small to ever trigger the mine. The rat receives banana treats for discovering the mine, while her owners receive safety.

Mandy, who is particularly good at sniffing out mines, shows how it's done:

BBC Earth also profiled rats in the same project who were trained to sniff out disease, a similarly astounding ability: